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Reveal – Entryway

Your entryway is usually the first part of the interior of your home that guests, and most importantly you, see upon entering. Because of this we want ours to be welcoming, inviting, and interesting. The entryway of our house has a traditional layout with the stairs on the right and rooms on the left and overall is quite large. The layout is good but it needed some life.

First off we added lights to the entryway. By virtue of a window at the top of the stairs, the transom, and large frosted glass window in the door the area gets a lot of natural light in the day. However, at night there area is very dark, so in went a ceiling fixture with an amber coloured shade and amber coloured drop pendants. We switched out the other two light fixtures further down the hall to the kitchen with Tiffany-inspired semi-flush mounts, off the shelf from Home Depot. Again, consistency.

We had decided from the outset amber would be the accent colour in the entryway but as you know from this post, we didn’t always know the paint colour. Eventually we chose this deep, bright green from Behr called “Par Four Green” because it helps bring all the wood and dark colours together. The variation in the wood furniture and floor seems less so with this green on the walls. Also, it works well with the charcoal coloured ceramic tile laid at the doorway and the white staircase and trim. Consistency is important so we carried the colour all the way down the hall. This also helps define the space from the other rooms.

We changed the carpet runner to add some more colour, help tie the area together, and for visual interest. Speaking of flooring and consistency, we laid new hardwood in the back part of the hallway. Again, this allows the hall to be consistent and well defined and it is an affordable and practical solution to a bit of a design dilemma. All of our flooring was purchased at Markan – their customer service and knowledge is second to none. We love dealing wit them!

The armoire is gorgeous and also a coat closet. We got an amazing deal on this at Robin’s Nest when they were having a 50% off sale this summer. We bought it without know for sure it would fit! It really was a must have. The marble top desk we got from one of our favourite antique spots, BC Antiques, for a song. It wasn’t in great shape when we got it so it took a lot of cleaning and love to bring it back to life. We got the mirror at BC Antiques as well and it used to belong to a dresser. Together they make a great pair! The newel post we also bought at BC Antiques and is apparently from Egmont Bay church.

You may remember we had a few issues with our cat when we first moved in. She was scared to go to her litter box. We remedied that for a while but eventually that didn’t work because she was scared to go through the cat door. It slammed when she went through and she just wasn’t having any of it so we had to take it right out. This, of course, left a gaping hole in the door which we covered with a cute little curtain! We picked up the fabric in the bargain bin at Fabricville and I think we paid $2 for it.

Further down the hall we have two pieces of yarn art. Mine is on the left and our friend’s, DIY Doris, is on the right. Yes, DIY Doris is a real person and no, it is not us! We love these pieces because they were hand made by us, with love and are interesting.

We think we accomplished what we set out to do and hope you agree. Voila, our entryway.